<someone, not sure who wrote> > I don't know why they think there is additional risk with > international shipments. Just send it with a signature required, and > it has exactly the same risk as any ordinary shipment in the US. But > a lot of vendors feel the same way.
As someone living in the UK, I do dislike it when someone won't ship outside the USA. But over the years I have learned there ARE additional risks for both buyer and seller. Nobody will convince me otherwise. The main one I see is the costs involved if an item has to be returned for some reason. Paypal insist the buyer pay the return shipping, and the seller the forward shipping. So irrespective of the reason something has to be returned, someone will lose out. Whatever the item, the costs of shipping internationally is much larger than locally, and on heavy test equipment the cost of shipping is often more than the value of the item. Here are a list of horror stories, which involve deals with both idiotic sellers, to arguably the worlds best test equipment manufacturer (Agilent). All have resulted in either * Me losing out * Seller losing out * Both of us losing out. Some have resulted in bad feeling, two of which become very public. In one case the seller lost £500 (GBP), which is around $750. That was a bit of an unusual situation though. The reasons have ranged from total incompetence, to something nobody could have forseen. As such, I believe there is additional risk even if both parties and sensible and honest. 1) I bought an HP 70310A precision frequency reference. It arrived with a fault. The shipping cost was more than the item. Paypal would insist I return it to the seller at my cost, which would have been pointless returning it. The seller kindly said to keep it, and he would send another, which he did. The replacement worked fine. I gave the unit to a friend, who had a bad HP 70310A. He managed to fix his HP 70310A with parts from my HP 70310A, so I came out ok there, and the seller lost a faulty item and Fedex shipping costs to the UK. 2) I bought an SMA connector gage from eBay seller "jewels". This looked complete, with every location in the foam with a piece in it that looked as though it was part of the kit. The item arrived and I got the manual and realized about 5 critical items were missing. Someone had put new foam it, so it looked complete, but it was not. The seller offered me something like a 60% discount if I kept it, but the missing parts made it only fit for the bin. I returned it. The seller did agree to both cover my return shipping fees and import duty, so she was willing to ensure I never lost anything. I felt she had been so fair, that I did not ask for the return shipping or duty. But we both lost out. She relisted the item, and made it clear there were parts missing. She is an honest seller, and I will certainly always buy from her. 2) I bought an HP 85051B verification kit from a US seller (spectratest on eBay). This has 4 components, plus a floppy which has data on the 4 components. One of the attenuators in the kit had an S/N different from that which matched the floppy disk., That would have made the kit useless without a very costly recalibration. The item cost was around $500, but getting it recalibrated would be around $2000. I returned it to the seller, as it was practically useless. He lost out carriage to the UK, and I lost carriage back to the USA and I never bothered recovering the duty. The unscroupulouse seller (spectratest on eBay), then relisted the item not making a purchaser aware the attenuator in the kit was not the same as the floppy disk was for. Whereas we all use instruments out of calibration, a VNA verification kit would be totally useless unless recalibrated, and the cost of calibration on them is very high - far more than on a VNA. 3) I bought an HP 8753A VNA + S-parameter test set from the US, which was badly packaged and arrived damaged. It was going to cost around $350 to return it, so we negotiated a deal and I would repair it. With hindsight I wish I had returned it and written off the $350, as it has sat around here nearly a year gathering dust, and I've not even taken the cover off. (Anyone in the UK want an 8753A that needs a bit of TLC? It does work, but I had to make a bracket to hold the power switch in. I've never fixed the power switch) That was no doubt the total incompetence of the seller. But I had a similarly badly packaged Yaesu transceiver shiped to me from someone in England, and it managed to survive, unlike the HP which had gone on a much longer journey. 4) I bought an Agilent N9923A vector network analyzer from seller "agilentused" on eBay. It was paid via Paypal, in USD. This is really Agilent. The VNA arrived nearly a month later, which was to be expected as it was stated delivery would be a few weeks. Despite it being reconditioned, the VNA was in excellent condition. I can't fault Agilent for how it was reconditioned. However, in my opinion the VNA was not fit for purpose. There were many firmware bugs, which Agilent did agree were too many. There was also a hardware fault, which Agilent said probably needed the main board replaced. I told Agilent to keep it. Agilent paid the return shipping cost. Since by the time this was all sorted out, it was too late to cancel the Paypal transaction, Agilent was going to refund me the purchase price in USD, which would mean I would lose nearly £500 (around $750) due to big differences in the buy and sell rates of the two currencies. There had not been much change in the GBP/USD exchange rate - it was just the difference in buy and sell rates between Paypal and Agilent's bank. I was fuming over this, and made my concerns about Agilent pretty public. In the end Agilent offered me £500 as a gesture of good will, which was a bit more than what I actually lost. So Agilent lost big-time on this * Transport costs from Malasia to the UK * Paypal fees * eBay fees * Transport costs from my house to Agilent's UK offices, and probably back to Malasia * £500 they paid me as a gesture of good will. 5) I bought an HP 85052B 3.5 mm VNA calibration kit from the USA. It arrived in poor condition. The seller did agree to give me my money back, but I would have had to pay the shipping back to the USA. With hindsight I wish I had returned it. Now I'm stuck with a cal kit I can't use, and I did have an agreement with the seller when I bought it that I would not resell it. He did not want to sell it to a trader who made money from it. I don't want to wind him up, but it has got to the point where I think selling it is the only sensible option. 6) I bought some rectifier diodes from someone in the USA. They were grossly under the advertised specification. Both the seller and I lost out, and it came quite public too. http://lists.contesting.com/_amps/1998-08/msg00137.html To this day the guy thinks I tried to rip him off, and I know I did not. 7) Bought an HP 85050B (APC7 / 7 mm) VNA cal kit from a US seller. It arrived with the foam badly damaged, and the kit was incomplete and other items substituted. We did negotiate a reduced price, and I think in the end I did not do too bad, though I've still not got the kit into a complete condition, thought it is much closer to useable than the 85052B 3.5 mm cal kit. I could list many more examples where trades have gone wrong, and due to one or more of * Import duty * Transport costs * eBay fees * Paypal fees * Difference in buy and sell rate of currencies someone has lost out. In some cases it is incompetence, with the most extreme example being the rectifier diodes, but in other cases it is just a genuine mistake. Dave, G8WRB (lotated in England) _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.